Ministry challenges Christians to worship this Christmas the way their brothers and sisters overseas do it: Without a Bible.
Contact: Erika Castle, 719-598-5869
FOWLERVILLE, Mich., Nov. 18 /Christian Newswire/ -- Christian Resources International, a ministry that sends Bibles and Christian books to needy Christians overseas, is calling on American Christians to spend this Christmas without the Bible.
CRI Executive Director Fred Palmerton suggests that "Christians in the United States should try and conduct one worship service this Christmas the way that our brothers and sisters in the Third World regularly have to worship: without any Bibles."
"Every day, more than 122,000 people become Christian, and most of those people are in Africa, Asia, and South America," reports Palmerton. "They're attending churches where even the pastors have no Bibles. In our country, the church isn't growing so much. But the pile of Bibles on every Christian's bookshelf sure is." In fact, research by Christian Booksellers Association and Zondervan Publishers indicates that the average American Christian owns nine Bibles(3) and is actively in the market for more.
Palmerton wants Christians in the United States to be more aware of the hardships encountered by their overseas brethren. "Often, the only resource worshippers in developing countries have is their memory, or what they write down on scraps of paper after visiting a church that does have a Bible." CRI invites churches and groups to sign up for Operation Bare Your Bookshelf (www.bareyourbookshelf.com), a project to make it easy for American Christians to send their Bibles and other Christian books oversees.
"The resources that are desperately needed in the developing church already exist," says Palermton. "They are gathering dust on the bookshelves of American Christians."
Christians desiring to donate their Bibles and Christian books are invited to visit www.bareyourbookshelf.com to register or receive more information.
Christian Resources International is a 50-year old volunteer-driven ministry that enables ordinary Christians to send their used Christian books and Bibles to English-speaking recipients in the more than 180 countries from which CRI receives hundreds of handwritten and e-mailed requests every month.
